


Old Survivors.

by creepypaola



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Justice League - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 21:30:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16416311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creepypaola/pseuds/creepypaola
Summary: “How did you manage to keep-” He stayed silent for a while, trying to find the words. One would have thought that the line had went silent but Bruce could still feel Tony breathing into the phone, “-to keep living.”In the aftermath of the snap, Tony asks Bruce a question.





	Old Survivors.

“How did you do it?”

His phone had rang in the middle of a Wayne Enterprise meeting, a boring and a very long one to be precise, so it was with relief that he had excused himself from the room and walked back to his office, the premise of an headache starting to hammer at his temples. He had closed the door and answered the call, recognizing a well familiar number on the screen.

“ _How_ _did_ _you_ _do_ _it?_ ” The voice had asked before he could say anything. Tony’s voice.

Bruce could feel the tiredness even miles away. It had been months by now. The League had been off universe trying to negotiate an intergalactic war when Superman had almost fainted in the middle of a council. His voice had slightly cracked but, while he managed to continue before anyone in the room could see anything, Bruce noticed how he grabbed the edge of the table, knuckles white. They had quickly settled things and immediately flown back to earth. Or to what was left of it.

They had joined forces with the remaining Avengers and the other teams, working non stop for a month just to get hospitals functioning again and to make food and water accessible. The snap had not only erased half of the population from the planet but, by doing so, had caused an infinite number of car and train crashes, plane had fell, hospitals had stopped working, basic goods hadn’t been available for weeks, especially to remote places. They still weren’t in some areas. The death count went up every day, still unknown how many were missing or had just disappeared. Funerals had been weekly, daily occurrences.

Bruce had wept silent tears when he had found out that _thank_   _god_ his family, for once, was still all alive. Not many had been that lucky.

It had taken weeks for Tony to come back. Teams captained by Kal, J’onn, the Lanterns, Captain Marvel, Nova and Thor had been dispatched trough the whole universe to find fellow heroes, while the others worked on earth. He had managed to come back by himself - _no-one_ _was_ _really_ _surprised_ _by_ _that, he_   _was_ _Tony_ _Stark_ _after_ _all_ \- with only Nebula by his side. It had taken one look at his eyes to understand that Peter wasn’t coming down from the ship they had used to come back.

He had worked relentlessly with the others to get things back to somewhat normal, or at least livable: on the streets by day, helping, funding, rebuilding, and in the lab by night, tracking, researching, studying, trying to find a way to undo, to bring things back. To bring _him_ back.

“How did you manage to keep-” He stayed silent for a while, trying to find the words. One would have thought that the line had went silent but Bruce could still feel Tony breathing into the phone, “-to keep _living_.”

Bruce’s heart had almost skipped a beat at that. He didn’t need more explaining, and Tony knew it.

His mind went back to Ethiopia, to memories of flames and smoke, to blood and exposed flesh, to limbs twisted in ways that they couldn’t, _shouldn’t_ be twisted. To the silent flight back to Gotham, to the made-up explanations, to the funeral. To the pain and grief and suffering. To the anger that came after, the mindless rage.

Tony knew because he had been there, with him. He had seen Batman, Bruce, his friend, his _brother_ , fall into a bottomless hole of despair, filled with self-blaming, ache and misery. He had seen him going numb to everything but sorrow, refusing help, using fists instead of words.

But he had also been there to hear the relief in his voice when at 3 a.m. Bruce had called him one night. “ _He_ _is_ _alive_ ” he had said, almost whispering, as if just the fact of saying it out loud would have reversed the miracle, “ _Jason_ _is_ _alive_.”

“Birds always come back to their nest, I told you.” Tony had replied after a couple of seconds of baffled silence, earning a snort from Bruce, “But I’m glad Bats, for real.”

Bruce knew what had happened on Titan because Tony had told him. They had been in the cave, trying to organize strategies and efforts, working side by side, silently, no words needed after years and years of knowing each other. Tony had broken the silence first.

“He begged me to not let him go.”

Bruce had looked up from where he was sitting and stayed quiet, giving the other man the time to find the words.

“He was clinging onto me and I took him in my arms and tried to hold him. I could feel his hands trying to grip onto the armor, onto something, _anything_ , and he kept begging and begging and begging and saying that he didn’t want to go and that he was sorry, so sorry-”

At that point Bruce was already in front of him, cowl scattered on the ground behind them, kneeling down to where Tony had lowered, rocking back and forth grasping for air. He knew about the PTSD, about the panic attacks, Tony had told him that too. So he just held his shoulders and tried to calm him, Tony leaning into his chest, muffled words spoken against kevlar, _he_ _was_ _so_ _young_ and _I should have saved him_  and  _I_ _should_ _have_ _done_ _more,_ _my_ _boy,_ _my-_

Bruce had stayed quiet, chin resting on his friend’s head and hands drawing circles on Tony’s back, while trying very hard not to think about the glass case in front of him. _A_ _good_ _soldier_ the plaque said.

 

They had always been very similar, Tony and him. A relationship that dated way before the superhero thing, way before the MIT days, back to childhoods with fancy galas and rich people. Back to when, too early for their tender age, they had realized how to recognize empty smiles and fake words. Back to rainy funerals and cold handshakes from unknown people. Back to lonely years filled with too many responsibilities. So when he replied, Tony knew, he knew that his words were sincere.

“I didn’t.”

The line went silent before he could say anything else.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I love my two depressed superhero orphans who are also billionaires and i only make sad comparisons between them. Wrote this last week in a hurry after making myself sad thinking about their similarities and forgot about it, so it’s finished but not really but whatever. It’s my first time actually publishing someting here so there are probably a lot of mistakes, also because this isn’t my first language. Okay, that’s it, bye.
> 
> I’m also on tumblr now, same @


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